Walter Gay Art
American, 1856-1937
Best known for his studies of French interiors, Walter Gay began his career in Boston as a floral still life specialist. He then traveled to Europe, studying in France and visiting Spain. In 1882, Gay joined the artist colony at Concarneau, Brittany where he concentrated on paintings of French peasants. It was after about 1895, having moved to the magnificent Château Le Bréau outside Paris, that Gay began painting decorative interiors and the occasional view of the exterior of the house. His works were eagerly sought by museums and socially prominent collectors on both sides of the Atlantic. As a respected artist, he exhibited regularly and counted among his friends many significant figures in the Parisian art world including Sargent, Helleu, Edith Wharton, and the Marquise de Ganay. Gay “searching for the spirit of empty rooms – interiors” soon focused on interior settings lavishly decorated in 18th century French style, a niche enthusiastically received by wealthy patrons and collectors on both sides of the Atlantic. While Gay executed his commissioned pictures quite straightforwardly, capturing all the elements of the chosen room, in portrayals of his own residences, he was more experimental in both objects displayed and perspective.(Biography provided by Taylor Graham)
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"Cardinal Flowers Still Life, June" Walter Gay, Red and White Floral Bouquet
By Walter Gay
Located in New York, NY
Walter Gay (1856 - 1937)
Cardinal Flowers Still Life, June, 1875
Signed lower left; dated on the reverse
Oil on board
24 3/4 x 7 1/8 inches
Provenance:
Private Collection, Brunswick, Maine
Born in Hingham, Massachusetts, Walter Gay became a painter who specialized in interiors, particularly those of eighteenth-century French buildings. His style was traditional, and he ignored the influences of modernist paintings he saw while studying in Paris beginning 1876. He remained in Europe the rest of his life.
In his compositions, the rooms are nearly always devoid of human presence but suggest that someone has been there. Many of his interiors are museum settings, and although he was not an impressionist, his work often had atmospheric effects.
When Gay died in 1937, he was described in The New York Times as the "Dean of American Painters in France," where he and his Matilda moved in 1876. His first paintings there were genre subjects and realistic views of peasant life in Britanny, but he tired of these works, which he called "pot boilers."
In the 1890s, he began his signature interiors, mostly rooms in fashionable houses of the Gays and their friends. Reproductions of many of these paintings were published in 1920 by Albert Gallatin, also a painter. The Gays, with a retinue of about twenty servants, loved old houses, and lived in an eighteenth-century apartment on the Left Bank in Paris from January through April and beginning 1904, in a chateau in the countryside at le Breau, near Fontainebleau. There they had 300 acres of grounds to roam.
In 1907, they purchased this chateau which became quite a showplace and where they entertained extensively. However, during World War II, when Matilda was living there as a widow, German soldiers occupied the chateau, ruining much of the structure and plotting the destruction of the country the Gays loved...
Category
1870s American Impressionist Walter Gay Art
Materials
Oil, Board
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Walter Gay art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Walter Gay art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Walter Gay in oil paint, paint, board and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 1920s and is mostly associated with the Post-Impressionist style. Not every interior allows for large Walter Gay art, so small editions measuring 11 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Marion Huse, William Malherbe, and Kelly Carmody. Walter Gay art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $5,600 and tops out at $10,101, while the average work can sell for $7,851.